Several DC-9's were sent to the desert in Dec. A friend picking up a MD-88 said the nines he saw sitting there did not appear to be in flyable storage. In 2008 a total of 42 DC-9's were retired. As the remaining nines come up on the required aging aircraft inspections they are also going away. Most of the airframes left are good to 2011 so retirements will slow or be none this year and next. After that they pick up and all nines are expected to be off the property in 2012. This has been the company plan from day one and has not changed once. The sad part is that management seems quite content to use the 76 seat RJ's as the replacement aircraft and there are no plans to replace the airframes. The smallest aircraft we will get is the 737-700 and those will be limited in number for special markets.

Let me preface this question with the statement that "the more the merrier on the seniority list."

If Compass and/or Mesaba are stapled to the bottom, as a wholy owned subsidary, wouldn't Comair have to be added as well? Not advocating it, just wondering if there would be implications of adding one group and not the others?

Denny

It might be in our best interest to merge the list however a key point to keep in mind is that we do not control the seniority list. It is maintained by management. As long as those airlines are in compliance with scope restrictions we can not force them onto our seniority list. We would have to convince management to merge the airlines and then ALPA merger policy would apply as to how they are integrated into the list. We could not staple them. Since managements number 1 most favorite trick is the divide and conquer strategy I don't see them wanting to merge the airlines under any circumstances. We would have to offer some large contract cost reductions to get them to even think about it.

Lots of interest! As well as anything that can be done to stop outsourcing OUR jobs, upgrades, schedules, and qol!!

I agree with Sailling. You can't force the company to in effect hire pilots from another company. Even a union resolution does nothing. It would be sort of like passing a resolution that we insist Delta base 777's in LAX. They don't have to.

What we can do is recapture the type of flying they do (70 seat) for our own list and the company can hire whoever they want to do it. Whoever they hire just has to be put on our list.

Our scope language has pretty much capped off the number of rjs that can be ordered so they can't just park -9's and replace with "RJs" unless those planes are flown at mainline. Also the -9's COULD be flown well past the date you keep trying to present.

Sorry to disappoint you, but 7 DC9s are coming out of the desert as we speak.

Sailing and NewK,

I totally agree with you both. I was just what ifing if it did come to pass for whatever reason. I'd like to recapture that flying for the mainline as I suspect pretty much everyone would.

Denny

Yes, but at a great cost. Super.
The checks that need to be done on the 9 to keep them in the air cost more than the acquisition costs of a shiny new 76 seat jet. Same goes for each 757. Why do you think we keep parking them.

Maybe or maybe not but the fact still remains that they are currently capped on what they can buy and have flown by non delta pilots. If they want more than by all means they can order them if the want delta pilots to fly them. They can also get md-90's cheaper than rjs ;)